Monday, March 26, 2012

Addenda to Easy Sociology and Catholic Power Fossils

Power cannot be stably balanced. But a power balance can be engineered into place. The latter is the easy part of sociology. Predicting what the attempt will actually accomplish seems roughly as hard as I expected it to be, but perhaps the antecedent soft problem can be transmuted. (I learned that just now.)

Moldbug's formally-specified sovereign corporation, with crypto-locks and everything, could be put into practice in the next couple months if just the right people decided to. (I suspect not that many.) That part's easy. Figuring out what it would change into later is the hard part.

It appears cultural organization is extremely flexible. If I put a car together wrong, it will jam or explode. If I put a program together wrong it will crash. Society doesn't seem to have a 'wrong' it can be put into. It will accept any sort of order as long as the order is being put into place by powerful enough entities.

Thing is, since humans instinctively know so much about sociology, I know more than I think I know. I can confidently predict that, had I the power, I could put into place a monarchy. I know what to do such that society reacts by monarchizing.

To exploit this skill, all I have to do is ask myself how society will react to being monarchized. Or: don't just work out why crypto-locks aren't cost effective. Work out what would accomplish technological loyalty. Don't stop at one option, find most of them. Relevant question: why doesn't the US Army stage a coup?

When I mention that the powerful don't have the interests of society in mind, I do so because thinking is work and therefore they'll avoid it unless there's something in it for them. That no society has ever been well organized doesn't guarantee it is impossible, it merely guarantees that nobody who had the power to do so had the drive to do so.

I went over this on Moldbug's blog a while back, but I'm happy to go over it again.

In short: it's exactly the same as trying to put a crytpographic lock on a hammer. Literally: firearms are activated by a hammer whacking something.

Firearms are not really high-tech objects. in fact, they're pre-industrial. The functional principles of modern firearms haven't changed in well over a century: there's a reason that the .45 pistol is also called a "1911." A skilled machinist can build his own. In fact, a moonshiner in NC did this back in the 30s...while he was in prison for murder.

Further, firearms are immortal, at least given human timescales. Rifles that saw action before WWI are still usable, and useful. There are tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of firearms in civilians hands in the US alone, and they're not going to disappear.

"I went over this on Moldbug's blog a while back, but I'm happy to go over it again."

I love it when I'm wrong about people. Mea culpa.

One nitpick: epistemically, you didn't go over it. I mean since you don't have a handle, there's (almost) no way for anyone to verify that it was you.

Anonymous went over it, yes. Was that you? Only you can be sure.

"Literally: firearms are activated by a hammer whacking something."

Now that is what I call analysis.

"A skilled machinist can build his own. In fact, a moonshiner in NC did this back in the 30s...while he was in prison for murder."

I asked about this on Moldbug's blog. I compared it to counterfeit coins. The consensus was that counterfeiting was a lot harder.

"There are tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of firearms in civilians hands in the US alone, and they're not going to disappear."

This, however, is irrelevant.

The main reason is that citizens come to rely on state handouts. If the lazy way is to use the crypto-locked gun, all most marines will have on hand is a crypto-locked gun. (Though this is for illustration: I agree that small arms are probably not meaningfully lockable. As an additional reason: consider jamming the lock signal. Can't use a dead-man's switch or it becomes a vulnerability.)

Sure, someone could build an army in secret. They won't for exactly the same reason they don't now.

Moreover, air superiority leads to ground superiority. Cryto-lock the planes, the mechanized parts of mechanized infantry, the sea transports, the supply trucks...

Again, sure, this doesn't guarantee that they won't be used for insurrection. Just as a good justice system doesn't guarantee you won't get mugged.

It just makes it dramatically less likely, by making it dramatically more costly and/or risky.

"and it seems to be a key requirement for implementing "patchwork" or sov-corps or whatever it's called now."

I'm good with words, and so not fussed about terminology. I'll figure out what you mean. Fussing about words is because it is necessary for marketing, and I'm not a market.

Why would it be a key requirement?

Actually, Moldbug's crypto-locks are mainly about illustrating that technology can fix even loyalty issues. If not through crypto-locks, then by inspiring the reader to think of something that would.

However, loyalty has worked well enough in the past. There's no reason that I can see that the populous couldn't be SovCorporatist exactly the way they're Nationalist now.

"As for why I care: I like Moldbug's ideas."

I am hereby refuted.However, note that the 'too bad' looks sarcastic on the net, because everyone else uses it sarcastically. 'Absurd' is also a shibboleth for contempt. As this case proves, it isn't infalliable, but the safest bet nevertheless...